Her eyes widened in surprise. “You don’t think we’re compatible?”
“Honestly?”
She nodded.
“No, Mam, I don’t.” I picked a piece of fluff on my pajama bottoms and shrugged. “Kev’s always been your golden child, while I’ve always been too much of, well, me for you to handle.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yeah, it is.” I smiled ruefully. “To be honest, I think we’ve spoken more in the last week than we have in the last three years, and that’s probably only because we finally have something in common now.”
Pain encompassed my mother’s face and I felt like crap for putting it there.
“That’s not to say that I don’t feel loved,” I hurried to add, reaching for her hand and giving it a reassuring squeeze. “Just that I know what it’s like to feel out of sync with a parent, but still feel supported and cared for. I mean, I don’t resent you or anything like that. I don’t harbor any ill will or have any mommy issues.”
“I’m so sorry,” Mam whispered, looking truly horrified. “I never realized that you felt this way.”
“Mam.” I rolled my eyes. “Get a handle on yourself, will ya? It’s not that deep.”
“I don’t favor your brother,” she blurted out. “I don’t. I swear. I love you both the same.”
“I know that,” I told her, and I did. “And I also know that it’s okay that you get along better with Kev. That’s got nothing to do with love, Mam. That’s just a matter of Kev’s personality suiting yours better than mine, and that’s cool with me. I’m good with it, Mam. Honestly.”
“You really mean that, don’t you?”
I nodded honestly. “I really do.”
She stared at me for a long time before blowing out a breath. “You’re going to make a wonderful little mammy, do you know that, my girl?”
“Yeah,” I mumbled. “Sure I am.”
“You are,” Mam pushed. “I can see it now – I can see everything so much clearer now.”
“See what?”
“You,” Mam replied. “The woman you’re becoming. That backbone of steel behind you. The reason why he’s so drawn to you.”
“Who?”
“Joey.”
My face heated. “Oh?”
“Obviously, you’re a beautiful looking girl.”
I snorted and waved a hand in front of myself. “Obviously.”
“And modest,” Mam jibed before continuing, “But you’re so much more than a pretty face. You are warm, Aoife. That poor boy never stood a chance with you, did he? Not when everything he’s never been given flows from you like a waterfall.”
“No, I’m drama, remember?” I joked, feeling embarrassed.
“You’re that, too,” she agreed with a smirk. “But my god does warmth shine out from beneath that mischievous exterior of yours. It’s infectious.”
“Ah, that would be the pregnancy glow shining, Mam.”
“Would you stop deflecting and take the compliment.”
“Yeah, well, I can’t help it.” I grimaced in protest. “It’s weird.”
“You don’t have any problem taking a compliment when it comes to your face.”
“Yeah, well, I can look in a mirror whenever I want validation for the physical,” I shot back, unapologetically. “I can’t exactly cut myself open and see all this fuzzy, infectious warmth now, can I?”
“Well, trust me, it’s there,” she replied, smiling. “And don’t you dare ever lose it.”
HOW DID I GET HERE?
JOEY
With the mother of all headaches, I slowly blinked awake. I felt fucking horrified as I slowly registered the fact that I was face-down in a stranger’s floral-patterned bedsheets, with no recollection of how I’d gotten there.
Panic stricken, I quickly sprung up on my elbows and looked down, relieved to find myself fully clothed in my school uniform. I even had my shoes on.
Cracking my head off a familiar bunkbed bar above me, I slowly realized that I was in my own bed, but the sheets had been changed – by Shannon, no doubt.
“So, you live to tell another tale,” Podge said flatly, as he sat on the edge of the mattress, with an empty water bottle in hand. “What the fuck, Joey? I thought you got a handle on this?”
“Why are you here?” I muttered, gingerly pulling myself into a sitting position, as the room felt like it was floating around me. Pushing my damp hair out of my eyes, I asked, “Why am I here?”
“I brought you here,” he replied. “You passed out in the toilets at school this afternoon, asshole. Aoife found you and came and got me. You’re damn lucky that Nyhan didn’t catch you, or you’d be out on your ass.”
“This afternoon?” Confusion echoed through my mind, and my heart gunned in my chest. “What time is it?” I shook my head. “Where’s Aoife?”
“It’s after two.”
“In the afternoon?”
“No, lad, in the middle of the night.” Podge sighed heavily. “You’ve been out for ten hours, Joey. So again, and I can’t stress this enough; what the fuck?”
Jesus Christ.
“I don’t know.” Climbing unsteadily to my feet, I pushed my damp hair back from my face once more. “Why’s my hair wet?”
“I had to wake you somehow,” he defended, throwing the empty water bottle at my head. I didn’t bother to duck, choosing to let the plastic smack me upside the head. “You’ve been out for so long; I was starting to think that you might be dead.”
“Yeah, well, I’m clearly not dead.”
“This time,” he shot back, running a hand through his hair. “Jesus Christ, how long has it been going on again?”
“It was just a one-off.”
“Bullshit.”
“Leave it out, Podge,” I muttered. “I fucked up. I get it. I don’t need a goddamn lecture.”
“Going by the look on Aoife’s face, and the sheer volume of tears she spilled, you did more than just fuck up this time.”
I tensed, on edge. “What does that mean?”
“Like you give a shit about anything other than what goes up your goddamn nose.”
“What does that mean, Podge?”
“It means you completely fucked it with your girlfriend,” he whisper-hissed, rising to his feet. “I don’t know what you did to her, or what the fuck you said, but I have never seen devastation like that.”
“What do you mean?” Panicked, I grabbed my phone, only to find zero notifications from Molloy. I quickly dialed her number but was sent straight to voicemail. “Jesus Christ, what did I do?”
He folded his arms across his chest and gave me a hard look. “You tell me.”
“I wouldn’t be asking you if I fucking knew,” I snarled, losing my cool now, as I paced the room. “You said she was crying?” I looked to him, panicked. “Did I hurt her?”
He stared at me for a long time before shaking his head in resignation. “No, Joe, you didn’t hurt her like that. You never laid a finger on her, lad, and you never would, so relax.”